was before I knew her--knew
anything."

"'A woman's place is at home with her husband,'" Bailey went on with a
wicked glee.

"And that's where I would put her!" retorted Allingham, with spirit. "At
least, I'd give her the chance."

"Go in, my boy," said Bailey, reaching out his hand to grasp his
friend's, "I don't know how she feels--she's not easily won, I know; but
try it. Go in and win."

That afternoon the opportunity presented itself. Allingham walked home
with the Mayor. She usually drove home, but the clear, cool air of the
closing autumn day, coming after long hours in office, had tempted her
to test her pedestrian powers, and she had left City Hall alone.
Allingham, however, appeared at the gates and asked permission to join
her.

"If you care for a brisk walk of two miles," she answered, genially. "Or
even if you give out and desert me on the road, you may begin. O, how
good it is to shake off the dust of City Hall and take a bit of good,
healthful exercise. Walking is the best way I know to keep the cobwebs
from your mental sky, or to restore your tired nerves and overworked
brain to normal condition."

"I walk five or six miles every morning," answered Allingham. "I believe
it's the way God meant human beings to get over the ground."

"Yes," she added. "Mother Nature invented walking, while man invented
carriages and cars and motors. How are Blatchley and Watts getting on
with--but there, I chose to walk just to get away from the cares of
office; and here I am bringing them along with me. Let's be just a boy
and girl walking home from school together," she added, whimsically.

"Or man and woman walking through life together," he amended quickly.

She did not answer. The crises of her life did not usually find her so
unprepared. They walked a little way in silence; then he spoke again.

"I love you, I want you. Won't you walk with me 'still farther on?'"

They had come to a shaded walk across a little bridge, and by a common
impulse they lingered a little here. While she waited, a sudden vision
came before her eyes--and her heart, which had been in a tumult at his
first words, grew calm and cold. She saw, not the impassioned, tender
man on the bridge, speaking in low, musical tones of love and devotion
and his need of her; but the strong, self-sufficient, young chairman in
his office of the Municipal League--the man who had seemed to her to
have the least comprehension of the complex modern woma